It happens every year at my wife’s Christmas party. A small group of her colleagues meets at a fancy restaurant and we drink and eat and drink and talk and drink and drink some more. I wind up talking with Manny at some point in the evening, and during our conversation he’ll invite us to a party at his house. Or does he? It’s happened so often that my wife and I refer to it as an ambivitation, an ambivalent invitation, the kind of invite where you can’t tell whether you’re invited or not.
They’re a good bunch for the most part. I don’t know any of them well, but I enjoy talking with them and they seem not to mind me. After a few drinks, we’re all friends. Manny’s a good guy. I’m sure he means well. If my wife and I ever appeared at his door for the party, I’m sure he’d welcome us. Maybe. After the conversation drifts along its natural course, without fail the topic shifts to his seasonal party.
“We have this massive party every year,” he said. “Great food, plenty to drink, live music, fireworks. The Pope might even stop by.” Okay, the part about the Pope is a slight exaggeration.
“Sounds great,” I say, and it does. Who wouldn’t want to go to his party? A live band? Fireworks? Sign me up for a sparkler. And then he says it again, for the third time in as many years, the key phrase:
“You ought to come by.”
No date, no time, no address, no phone number, not even a zip code. The party is incognito. Are we invited or aren’t we? It can go either way. We ought to come by? What does that mean? There are many things I ought to do. I ought to fix the garage door. I ought to learn another language. It’s an invitation, but it isn’t.
“Uh, sure,” I say. How can I refuse an invitation to a party that exists only in the ether, in my imagination, a place where a champagne fountain flows and a magician makes an elephant vanish in front of clapping hordes?
“All right,” he says. “Great talking with you.” And just like that he’s gone, on to the next person, leaving me with nothing but uncertainty and an invitation that isn’t. Or is it? What do you do with an ambivitation?
How about you? Have you ever received an ambivitation? Ever been ambivitated? Let me know.
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